


Lagerfeuer

by RomanKerze



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:54:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24984172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomanKerze/pseuds/RomanKerze
Summary: An insensitive remark leads to trouble on a camping tripIf you stan Werner Lindemann and/or Peter Tägtgren maybe skip this?
Relationships: Richard Kruspe/Till Lindemann
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	Lagerfeuer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Krankes_gehirn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krankes_gehirn/gifts).



‘...and then I had this idea: why not just take something bigger? It’d last us longer.’

Richard took over, fighting through his laughter, ‘So I came back to the car empty handed, completely dejected, only to find Till folding a cow into the boot of my car! We butchered it and hung it up, just kind of… ate chunks of it when we were hungry?’ a wistful smile played on his lips, ‘Cooked, of course. You remember what it was like.’

‘That’s tame compared to the time we kidnapped that festival editor and left him tied up in a storeroom with lit fireworks.’ Flake chimed in. They all took a moment to agree, it was pretty fucked up. Funny, but probably a bad idea.

‘Richard fucking off to New York without telling us was a pretty bad one,’ said Paul, swigging his beer and pointing the neck at Richard in drunken accusation, ‘I’m still pissed at you for that, by the way.’

‘I thought you wanted me to leave! All I did was move house with my wife, there is no _way_ that’s a wild story at all, you just want to guilt me. Anyway, it’s nowhere near as bad as Till cutting himself and bleeding all over the pages of his poetry _without even telling us_.’

Peter interrupted their reminiscences, ‘Yeah, that was fucking crazy man! There must be something wrong with you in your head, to think of that. Totally metal. You belong in a _home_.’ He laughed at his own joke, not registering the change in atmosphere: The camp had fallen dead silent. Till’s laugh turned bitter on his tongue. Everyone else exchanged troubled glances, but Peter didn’t seem to have noticed a thing, still giggling away to himself.

The silence broke when Till answered: ‘Good luck finding somewhere that’ll take me, they already tried that.’

‘Huh?’

‘I said: my parents already tried that.’ His voice was strained, quiet and tight in his throat.

‘Heh, what did you do to set them off, kill a cat or some shit?’

‘Peter.’ Schneider this time, the warning clear. Till set his jaw, poking at the fire with his stick to occupy his hands.

‘C’mon, don’t be a crybaby about it, i’m just joking.’

Peter finally seemed to notice the other’s staring daggers into him. He held his hands up in surrender: ‘Whatever, man. I’m going for a piss.’ He walked across the camp, far beyond the tents and into the woods, only pausing to collect his cigarettes.

Till tracked his departure in his peripheral vision: He refused to move, scared it was some sign of weakness. Of course, his new friend had seen him cry before, but that was over superficial stuff, stuff you could brush off, tease over. None of it was as honest as thoughts of his father were.

His father. A man who beat his son’s backside bloody for accidentally setting a patch of grass alight. A man who came and went as he pleased for years, never taking the time to see more than the surface, if that. A man who got so angry at his teenaged son that he punched him square in the jaw and then wrote about it in his book. Downplayed, of course: he never seemed to recall the blood. Or the teeth, despite the fact that they were spat at his feet. The blood had flecked the hem of his trousers, Till had watched it happen, made sure he’d leave some kind of mark before he finally left for good.

  
  


He traced his tongue across the bridge secured in the left side of his mouth, a relic of his last day living with his father. His canine, home-grown, worried at his lower lip, the pull to suck his thumb outmatched by the shame flooding his brain.

The fire crackled, shivering embers out and onto his bare skin, but if he felt it he gave no sign. Despite the prickle of the flames he was _freezing_ , yet he made no move to warm himself. His breathing hitched and struggled out, and only the wetness on his cheeks alerted him to the fact that he was crying. He found himself gentle rocking side to side, searching hands finding solace grinding against the bark of the log. His vision narrowed into a murky tunnel and though his palms already burned from the friction he had an overwhelming desire to say fuck it and plunge his hand into the glowing mound of charcoal and wood ash at the heart of the fire.

He didn’t hear the man approaching, or sighing, or sitting down and shuffling as if to test the waters. He jerked when a pair of arms circled his shoulders, but didn’t move away. Instead, he simply turned to press his forehead into the neck of the man holding him. A hand took his, bringing it up to his chest. He pressed his hand over his friend’s heart, trying in vain to synchronise his own breathing to the rise and fall of his chest. It was equal parts muscular and soft through his shirt: Richard, then. Any of them would have been acceptable, but only Richard knew the worst of it. He’d understand. He was grateful they knew this.

  
  


‘Do you need to talk about it?’

Till scrubbed a hand over his face, streaking it with charcoal or dirt, ‘I’ll be okay.’

‘But you aren’t right now, are you?’

He pulled in a breath, prepared to lie to save the night, but he couldn’t. Wouldn’t, not to Richard.

‘I didn’t even know until I read his book, did you know that? I went to see my mother afterwards and she said, plainly, that they knew something was wrong with me. Not thought, _knew_. For years they… I didn’t...’ His voice cracked, suddenly bone dry.

‘It’s okay, take your time.’

Richard’s nose nuzzled into the mess of his hair: it must be gross, smokey from the fire and turning greasy, but he didn’t seem to mind. Till focused on the movement of his ribs, tricked into tranquillity by the all too familiar rhythm of his heartbeat.

‘I still don’t even know what the problem was. I read it over and I just can’t find it. I’m not going to sit here and say i’m particularly, well, usual, but I wasn’t a _problem_ , was I? I wasn’t—‘ He gulped a breath and fought through the sensation of choking, ‘I knew he hated me, wanted rid of me, but I never thought she was on his side.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with you, Till, not like that. They didn’t understand you. You know how germany thought about people like us, what they… what they did. They were there, they learned that.’

‘So you think I should forgive him?

Richard tensed, ‘No way. Explanations are not excuses, I hope he's rotting in hell.'

He snorted, ‘Where did you hear that line? I like it.’

‘Therapy, you should try it sometime.’ He jabbed Till in the ribs, making him squirm and giggle.

‘Fine, okay, I’ll think about it!’

Richard pulled him back against his chest, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head, and settled down to watch the fire

  
  


***

Paul had watched intently as Richard sat down to comfort Till, the urge to join them fighting his longing for confrontation. The latter won out: Till was in safe hands. He stalked into the woods, searching for and finding the outline of their guest.

‘Peter, a word?’ Despite the phrasing it was clear it was not a question, but in case it was too ambiguous Paul set the tone with a bruising grip around his wrist. They marched further out into the woods, enough that the campfire was only visible by the glow gilding the most distant trees. Peter tripped several times over roots and god knows what else, but Paul didn’t so much as slow down.

When Paul spoke, his voice burned with venom. ‘First you convince him to get blackout drunk and get into a fight, then you don’t step in when he spends five fucking minutes giving himself a third degree burn which _required a skin graft_ , and now this?’ Peter opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish but couldn’t find a word to defend himself. Paul continued, ‘You call yourself a _friend?_ ’

He tried to walk away, but Paul’s grasp held firm. He answered back: ‘Stop being a pussy, it was just a joke!’

Fingernails pressed into flesh, ‘It. Wasn’t. Funny.’

In the blink of an eye Peter had gone from standing defiantly against the much smaller man to curling up on the floor, clutching his stomach where Paul had kneed him. He scrambled to get up, but, winded, it was all he could do to shuffle into a sitting position. Another shove and he found himself face down in the leaf litter, a boot grinding his face into the dirt. He clawed at the ground, frantic for anything that might help him; all it earned him was a splinter of wood wedged under the nail of an adrenaline-numbed fingertip. Paul was still talking, but he barely heard him over the thumping of his own heart. He’d never actually been in a fight before, if you could even call it that. He sucked earth-dust into his lungs. He kicked out as if he was drowning.

When he finally tired the boot lifted, only to find itself a new haven in the bones of his chest.

Three dull thuds, a choked sob. A cracked rib.

Panic rose in his throat. His mouth filled with saliva, dust turning to mud that crunched between his molars. He gagged at the taste as much as the pain, vomiting stale beer into his hair and gasping between heaves as the contractions strained the fractured bones. He prayed there would be no blood when he looked down: he wasn’t sure any of them would help him if his injuries were serious. With his newfound rage-strength, Paul dragged him out of the dirt by what was left of his ponytail, strands towards his hairline tearing out with his weight and leaving a fresh bloom of pain in their wake, and dropped him on the trunk of a fallen tree. He yanked his head back and growled a few last words into his ear. ‘This is your last warning. You’re lucky it was me this time.’

He stalked off without a final glance, leaving Peter to find his own way back to the camp.

***

They sat entwined for so long Till thought Richard must be asleep, and he was halfway to joining him when he spoke again.

‘If an afterlife exists, not reincarnation like I’d want, or whatever, I uh. I think I’d like to meet your dad again.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’

Just as he was about to reply, Paul plonked himself down onto the bench.‘What are we talking about?’ he asked.

Schneider answered from a few metres away; Till had almost forgotten he was there. ‘Easing into resurrecting and murdering Till’s dad, I think?’

‘Pretty much, yeah.’

‘Am I invited? If even half of the things i’ve heard are accurate I swear I will dig that bastard up and turn his skull into a fucking soup bowl.’ That drew a laugh from Till. Just a short huff, but it was something.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel a little bad but it was him or one of the boys.


End file.
